


Owl City - A Novel Experience

by Dearheart42



Category: Owl City (Band)
Genre: Autism, Bad Puns, Creativity, Fantasy, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Hope, Inspired by Music, Magic, Music, Music as Magic, Optimism, Talking Animals, owl city references EVERYWHERE, spirituality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4388345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dearheart42/pseuds/Dearheart42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After two years of bouncing around in foster care, protecting her autistic brother and waiting for their grieving alcoholic dad to get his act together, Samantha Park is done with broken promises. The best she can do is stick with Michael and keep what's left of her family in one piece, day by day. </p>
<p>Until one night, Michael drags her along with him to follow a "magic firefly" into the woods.</p>
<p>Next thing she knows, they've been whisked into Owl City: a strange imaginary world where alligators can fly, owls can talk, and music is a magical force. </p>
<p>It's a wondrous city, but the peace is short-lived. Wherewolves are attacking. The fireflies are disappearing. A heavy darkness is covering the sky. And the mysterious man behind the magic - Owl City himself - is being targeted. Sam, Michael, and all their friends soon learn that this place is just one light in an age-old struggle between hope and despair, and it is up to them to fight for the outcome. </p>
<p>For the line between Imagination and Reality is much thinner than anyone knows. The force that wins will shape the destiny of both.</p>
<p>And, Reader, just so you know - the good guys might need your help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to the First Creator, in whom I live and move and have my being; and to every little-c creator who inspires me to be one, too. Especially you, Adam.
> 
> Thank you, all of you.
> 
> ~ -:- ~ 
> 
>   _Though I won't be missed,_  
>  I would say it's time  
> For a different twist  
> In the storyline. 
> 
> \-- Owl City, "Bird With A Broken Wing"
> 
> ~ -:- ~

The monster on the other side of the door was still yelling.

Michael’s cheek throbbed. He couldn’t hear the words; his ears wouldn’t stop ringing and his head wouldn’t stop buzzing and it felt like all his insides had turned into snakes, crawling out of his skin and up his throat. Every cell in his body screamed. He groaned and dug his fingers into his face, neck, hair,  _anywhere_  that would make it stop. 

“No, no, Michael, don't hurt your head,” said another voice. It was blurry and far away, but he knew who it belonged to.

“Sam,” he gasped, “I can’t—”

“The blanket, Michael!” The words swam to him like paint in water. “Squeeze the blanket instead. Go ahead and hit it, if you need to. Just not your head, okay?”

The monster pounded into the door again. More yelling. Michael could see his sister across from him in a square of dim moonlight, sitting against the dresser she’d barricaded their room with, arms braced behind her to hold back the danger. The drawers rattled, and she rattled with them; but she looked at him and smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t let him get you.”

He pressed his palms into his eyes and cried. “We have to cover the clocks; we just  _have_  to. The numbers are burning me.”

“I know,” Sam said. Her voice trembled. “I know it’s hard. But there's no numbers in this room right now. No clocks. And no bad people. You’re going to be okay, I promise.”

She reached up, fumbling for something on top of the dresser. The object dropped into her lap. She gathered it up in one hand and threw it to him like a lifeline - her headphones and mp3 player.

“Just listen to the music, Michael. You’ll be okay.”

He reached for the cord of the headphones with shaking fingers and closed his fist around it.

WHAM!  Sam drew in a sharp breath as another blow thundered against the door. Michael wailed in pain from the sounds crashing in his head.  His hand jerked back, yanking the music player towards him. The tiny screen glowed next to him, a beacon in the dark.

“That’s it,” Sam breathed, encouraging him. “Just listen to the music. Don’t think about anything else right now. Just listen. It’ll help you.”

Michael gritted his teeth, feeling around for the headphones.  He shoved them over his ears and hit the play button, his whole body clenched, not moving, not breathing until he heard the first three familiar seconds of the song.

His blanket was in a rumpled heap near his head. He reached and pulled the comforting weight over his shoulders as snug as he could, to press down all the noise in his skin. Then he shut his eyes and let the music flow into him. The piano twinkled softly, silvery tones dancing in soothing patterns, and everything else – the bad man, the scary noises, even Sam's wobbly smile – all of it melted away. Nothing mattered now but the music and the voice singing to him.

_Close your tired eyes, relax, and then  
Count from one to ten, and open them._

He always liked how nice this version of the song felt. Quiet and calm and cool, just like nighttime. This voice had some wonderfully gentle songs. A lot of fun ones, too. But gentle was so much better right now. 

His breathing slowed, the tension loosening in his body. His eyes opened again.

There was a pale ribbon of moonlight close to him on the floor, from a gap in the curtains. It looked like a miniature of the long sidewalk outside his old school, where Sam used to walk with him. Before Dad got in trouble and they had to go away. He traced the light with his eyes and imagined himself very small - small enough to step on the moon-sidewalk and go on and on, up and up, all the way out the window into the sky.

_All this gravity will try to pull you down,_  
_But not this time._

The notes sparkled around him like stars, swept him aloft on shimmering wings, and now he was flying. He was so high up that when he looked down, there weren’t any houses or trees. No streetlights, no cars, nothing to remind him of the world below. Only a vast ocean of clouds that stretched out as far as he could see, glowing beneath the giant moon. All the while, the magic voice was with him and the music seemed to spread and fill the night, every moonbeam and cloudy wisp entwining with melody and harmony. 

And then, slowly – so slow he barely noticed – it faded into a steady hum at the back of his mind. Michael blinked, and saw the wings that carried him now were made of white feathers. He was straddling something warm and soft. And the owner of the wings was mumbling the lyrics for “Shooting Star” under their breath, woefully out of tune.

He grinned. “Hi, Thomas.”

“Hello, Michael!” said the snowy owl, turning to wink a golden eye at him. “Wasn’t expecting you to randomly appear on my back tonight, but it’s good to have you…well, back.”

“Oh.  _Oh!_  I’m back and I’m on your  _back!_ ”

Thomas laughed. “I wasn’t even trying; that one just slipped out. Anyone ever tell you your reactions to puns are the greatest?”

“Yeah. Sam says that, too.” Michael paused, a heavy feeling growing in his chest. “I wish she could come here. But I don't think she knows how anymore.”

“The Real World’s still putting you two through the wringer, eh?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What I meant was, are you and Sam having hard times again? On the other side?”

“Oh, I see. Yes. The man at this house is really…mean. I want the social worker to take us home, but she won’t. We’ve been away 556 days, but nobody will tell me how many are left until we go back home and it makes my brain upset.”

“That’s rough.”

He shivered and leaned forward on his stomach, laying his head down on Thomas’s feathers. “I feel all squeezed up inside now. I need to stop talking.”

“No worries,” said Thomas, casually weaving back and forth through the clouds. “Just relax and enjoy the flight, my friend. Never know when the Real World will yank us back.”

They flew on in a comfortable silence for a minute. The night was clear and covered with stars – some spread out, some in dazzling clusters that swirled and crisscrossed everywhere, as if a 2-year-old had dipped their fingers in the Milky Way to paint the sky. Michael watched it shine, listened to the fresh, cool air rushing over them, and drank all of it in. Pure and perfect. Not a dirty floor or a whiff of cigarettes anywhere. He wished he could bottle it up and take it back with him, but he knew it was impossible to take imaginary things into his own world. The two universes weren’t designed to mix that way. It made him a little sad. 

But he supposed, as others have, that leaving beautiful things behind is what makes them so special when you return to them.

“Oh no,” Thomas muttered.

“What is it?” asked Michael.

“The dark spot’s gotten huge. Look, to the right. See that thing?”

He turned his head and sat up. Sure enough, right where Thomas had said, a great, dark, yawning space hung in the sky. Like a giant hand had reached up and yanked out a handful of stars.

It was jarring, seeing it in the middle of the sparkling glory around them. Michael couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. “When did it come? Is it bad?”

“No one knows exactly when it showed up, but that spot has been growing inch by inch every day and let me tell you, I’ve never seen it this big. It’s twice the size I last saw it.”

“Are the stars disappearing?”

“That’s what other Wanderers are saying, but I’m not so sure.” Thomas made an uneasy loop-around, maneuvering so that they were flying towards it head on. “Look at it. Does it feel empty to you?”

Michael stared. It was too far off to get near it. It _looked_ like emptiness, but the more he watched it, the more he got the sense of something thick spreading out like smoke from a wildfire. Something heavy and stifling, sinking into the universe. He could feel his heart aching under the weight of it.

“It feels…” He struggled for the word. Words had always been hard for him to grasp. “Sad” came to mind, but it didn’t seem to go far enough.

He said so to Thomas, who bobbed his head in agreement. “I know. I feel it, too. It’s definitely a something, not a nothing. See, I don’t think the stars are actually vanishing. I think they’re being swallowed.”

“The dark stuff is _eating_ the stars?”

“I don’t mean literally swallowed, I mean like…they’re being surrounded. Overcome, smothered, trapped. And it’s not just this world; I’ve been seeing it in other places, too. Whatever the stuff is, it’s not good and steadily getting _more_ not-good. Folks are getting nervous. Rumor’s going around that the fireflies are starting to leave, too—ow! Easy on the feathers, buddy!”

Michael had buried his hands in the downy warmth to keep them busy and unknowingly started pulling. “Sorry,” he said, forcing his fingers still again. “I didn’t mean to. I just…”

“Eh, it’s my fault. Here I am, talking about doom and gloom and making us both all wound up, when we _should_ be enjoying ourselves. You didn’t come for morbid conversation, you came here to escape. So.” The owl glanced back at him, mischief glinting in his eyes. “Shall we do the rollercoaster thing?”

“Okay,” said Michael.

Thomas hooted in delight. “Count us off, captain!”

Giggling, Michael shifted where he sat and braced his knees. He wrapped his arms around Thomas’s neck, gripped as tight as he could, and shouted, “3, 2, 1!”

A flurry of wings propelled them up, and then they dived through a gap in the clouds, whooping and screaming. The darkness and the stars fell away in a blur behind them as they rocketed down, down, down, embracing the rush of gravity; and just when Michael thought he couldn’t breathe anymore, they swooped up again. Looped, spun, dived, climbed. Down and up, back and forth, each turn and swoop a little smaller than the last, until gradually their trackless “rollercoaster” came to an end.

Thomas glided in lazy arcs as they caught their breath, both laughing and dizzy with thrill. The air had a salty tang to it now. Michael felt a cool spray on his cheek and heard waves moving beneath them. He could also hear a strain of pulsating, joyous music on the wind, thumping like a heartbeat.

“Ahh,” sighed Thomas happily, “forget every gloomy thing you saw tonight and check out _that_ view.”

Stretched out on the horizon, glowing as bright as the galaxies above it, the skyline of Owl City welcomed them. The bay was so calm that every skyscraper, every twist of architecture and gleam of glass was mirrored in the water, a near-perfect reflection. The shape of it reminded Michael of soundwaves.

And there was certainly plenty of sound now. The thump of the music grew louder and the city sang with life: Cars rushing through highways, beeping to each other in greeting. The murmuring of a million conversations. Laughter. A shriek of excitement. Somewhere, a crowd cheered in a stadium. Somewhere else, a girl whispered, “I love you.” Just a few yards away, an airplane zoomed past and the people inside waved at them. Michael waved back.

Somehow, the clamor of it never devolved into noise or chaos. Every sound had a place to belong. Everything harmonized. Everything fit.

“Beautiful,” said Thomas.

“Yes,” agreed Michael.

“Hey, bud…don’t give up on the idea of your sister getting here. Life has a way of changing when you least expect it.”

“I hope so.”

“I know so!”

Thomas did a brief spin in the air to make Michael laugh again, and the feathery fuzz around his beak lifted in a smile.

“Don’t forget,” he declared, “this is Owl City! _Anything_ can happen here.”


	2. Something In The Air

-:-

Once upon a time, fiction collided with reality. There was absurdity and there was beauty, there was anguish and there was hope. A light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

And you, Reader, were part of it.

Or, you’re  _going_  to be. I’m not sure which tense to use. Tenses and timelines can be so tricky sometimes.

I know it’s tacky and generally frowned upon, talking to the reader like this. (And I swear to never be a pretentious idiot and refer to you as the “gentle reader”. Ick.) I’m only addressing you now because I wanted to let you know ahead of time that **you’re important.** To this story, and to your own world. Both sides of reality will need you, and it may be sooner than you feel ready for. But try your best anyway, alright? Because I know you’ll be amazing. I’ve seen the potential, and it is limitless.

Sam and Michael and so many others saw it, too. But that part happened much later, and I have to do this properly. Prologue or no prologue, every good story begins when things get interesting.

The day things got interesting for Samantha Seul-Ki Park was the day her little brother told her that his toys could fly. 

-:-

She would have brushed it off as the rambling of an over-imaginative 11-year-old boy, if it were anyone other than her brother. Michael had never been the over-imaginative type. She wasn’t even sure he understood how to play pretend at all. His autism, mild as it was, came with a number of various quirks she’d learned to navigate over the years – and one of those quirks was that he never played with his toys the way other kids did. Instead of driving his Hotwheel cars in physics-destroying flips and crashing them into each other, he would line them up from wall to wall with careful precision.

Rather than make his plastic dinosaur roar and stomp and eat said Hotwheels, he carried it with him everywhere, running his fingertips over the scaly surface. And with his toy airplane, there were no flights around the world. He would simply set it by his bed and spin the propeller for hours while he listened to music.

He did like to build things with his k’nex set; but even then, he was never interested in building creations of his own. He preferred to google pictures of city skylines, pick any skyscraper that caught his eye, and then replicate it. No instruction booklets needed.

Sam figured if he _did_ have an imagination, it was a very left-brained one. So when he said he’d seen his toys fly that morning, she paid attention.

They walked home together after school every day, even though their schools were always different. She was four years older than him, and that age gap made it impossible to return on the same bus.  Moving from home to home made it especially hard to keep the tradition of walking together. But they were both stubborn about it, and no matter where they were living, she always found a spot to meet up. Today, their place was flooded with autumn gold and crisp air.

She avoided the leaves in the road as they walked, so that Michael wouldn’t be bothered by the harsh crunching noises. The murmuring of the trees was music enough, and it wasn’t often that he chatted with her like this. She wanted to enjoy it while it lasted. 

“Trevor flew first,” he said, holding up his dinosaur. “Then the Antonov An-2, and the circle-robot, and then everything all just went…” He stopped and spun in place, waving his free hand around and making little whooshing noises under his breath.

“Whoa! Careful!” Sam chuckled, pushing back a nearby tree branch so his long blond hair wouldn’t catch on it. (Haircuts were on his list of Things To Avoid.)

Michael finished his reenactment and let out a giddy laugh. “They were just randomly flying out of nowhere! When they were done I laughed because I thought it was silly.”

“As silly as _this?_ ” She shook her head until her dark bangs flopped over her face, then loudly huffed through her lips and sent the hair flying up in wild wisps.

Michael giggled again. She grinned at him, proud that her attempt was successful and surprised that he was happy enough to laugh at all. _Silliness_ , she thought. _Maybe he’s making a story because he likes silliness_. Michael had always found humor in the absurd and impossible. Perhaps because he took things so literally, turning them upside down was funny to him.

Still, telling a story was something completely new; and Sam hadn’t seen him this animated or cheerful in years. She wasn’t sure whether to be glad or concerned about the sudden change. Dad would probably be happy, if he were here. He saw it as a victory any time Michael initiated a conversation on his own.

(But Dad wasn’t here. Dad was doing who-knows-what, two hundred miles and four foster homes away…well, five now. Thank God they’d finally gotten out of that last one. And Mom was…no. She didn’t think about Mom. Ever.)

“I think it was the firefly that did it,” said Michael. Apparently the story wasn’t over.

“What firefly?”

“The one that woke me up. It had lots of magic sparkles, like Tinkerbell in the 1953 Peter Pan movie, but it wasn’t a fairy.”

Playing along, Sam raised her eyebrows. “How do you know it wasn’t a fairy?”

“’Cos I caught it.”

“No way.”

“ _Yes_ way,” Michael insisted. “It’s really a firefly. I looked very carefully.”

“But…you _hate_ flying bugs.”

“This one is different. It’s gentle. It doesn’t make my ears angry.”

Sam frowned. It was weird enough he was talking about flying toys and magic. Connecting the magic in his story to an _insect_ was a whole new level of “off” for him. He dreaded anything that buzzed. Hearing just one tiny fly in his room could be enough to trigger a meltdown in him, and she’d dealt with plenty of those. Nothing about this was making sense.

“You’ll see,” he promised. “I’ll show you when we go in the house.”

“You’re gonna show me, huh?”

“Yeah. I told you I caught it, remember?” He held up a reprimanding finger at her. “You need to pay attention, Sam.”

Gestures and body language were other things that didn’t come naturally to him, but he could pick up the obvious cues and imitate them when needed. The pointing finger happened to be his go-to tactic when he wanted to be taken seriously. Sam always felt a little guilty for finding it so cute.

So she stifled the smile, put on her most serious of Serious-Faces, and nodded. “Duly noted, Mike ‘N Ike.”

“I’m _Michael_.”

“Nope,” she teased. This good mood wouldn’t last forever, and she was determined to draw it out as long as possible. She jogged ahead a couple of paces and turned on her heel so that she was walking backwards, facing him. “Right now, you are Mike ‘N Ike because…” She pulled the prize out of her hoodie pocket with dramatic flair and shook it in front of him. The box of candy rattled enticingly. “Ta-da! Your favorite.”

“Ohh!”

“Don’t eat them all at once,” she said, dropping the box into his outstretched hands. He nodded, eyes wide and glowing. After ripping open the packaging, he counted out twenty Mike ‘N Ikes in his palm and gave half of the handful to Sam. In perfect unison, they both closed their fingers around the candy, knocked their fists together like wine glasses, tipped their heads back, and stuffed their mouths full.

He always shared his candy, when there was any. Back when he took Special Ed in kindergarten, his aide explained how sharing was a way to show kindness; and the idea had stuck with him ever since. Now, with home far away and only each other to cling to, it was one of many rituals they kept to maintain the illusion of normalcy. And it was still Sam’s favorite.

They rounded the corner where the wooden fence began, and Michael ran his fingers over the worn planks as they passed. When they stopped at the gate, Sam could hear the faltering squeaks and drones of a violin echoing from their house. Linda had already started lessons with her Friday student.

Michael finished the last bit of his candy and licked his lips. “Sooo good.”

Sam hummed in agreement and nudged the gate open with her foot. It squeaked even louder than the violin.

-:-

“Ah ah,” corrected Linda, tapping her student’s bent wrist. “Remember what I told you? No collapsed wrists.”

The little boy pouted over his violin and scuffed his shoes against the living room carpet. “Holding it the other way feels so _weird_ ,” he whined.

Linda shook her head in sympathy. “Oh, I know. It’s hard to get used to, but this is so important. It’s healthier for your wrist, and it gives your fingers the freedom they need to reach the notes. Like this.” She tucked her own violin under her chin, set her bow to the strings and pulled out a long, trilling scale, running her fingers up and down the neck with deft grace. When she finished, she playfully wiggled the same fingers at her student and scooted her hand around in various positions to emphasis the freedom of movement.

“See how much easier it is this way?” she said. “You can’t play like that when your wrist is busy supporting the neck instead of moving where it needs to.”

“I guess,” mumbled the boy, fidgeting with the edges of his sheet music.

“Don’t you worry, Benji. You’ll get the hang of it. Like anything else, it just takes practice.”

Sam cleared her throat and tapped her knuckles against the wall. “Hey, Mrs. Silvers? Sorry to interrupt, but Michael can't find his purple cup anywhere.”

“It’s in the dishwasher with the rest of the load, sweetheart,” Linda called over her shoulder. “If you could put them away for me, I’d appreciate it _so_ much!”

“Sure thing,” she sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes as she trudged to the kitchen. Sometimes Linda had so much sugar in her voice it could induce cavities.

_I’m not in preschool anymore. Jesus._

She mentally slapped herself for the ungenerous thoughts. Linda _had_ been her daycare teacher once, according to Dad; and though Sam didn't remember much, she remembered her songs and her pale hands making pictures in the air. She and her husband were good people. Kind people. So far, Linda was the only foster mom who had taken Michael's list of habits seriously and tried to understand him. She’d even framed the list and put it on her fridge.

Sam glanced over it as she pulled the door open to get his water. Linda had highlighted the most important points in sky blue. The last one was also double-underlined:

  *          _Every night at 9:27, all clocks MUST be covered or hidden! If the date is August 15th, all calendars must be taken down for the entire day. DO NOT ask why.  
  
_



She fished out the water pitcher from the organized chaos inside the fridge and shut the door with a bang. It never closed right if you didn't slam it.

“I’m very thirsty!” Michael shouted from the hallway.

“Be patient, Your Worshipfulness!” Sam shouted back.

“I’m not Worshipfulness, I’m Michael.”

“Yeah, well, you still need to be patient.”

“Ugh, fine…”

Linda’s voice sailed over them. “Kids! Lesson!”

“Sorry!” Sam winced and crept to the dishwasher.

As she rummaged through the dish rack for the right cup, she noticed the plate of macaroons on the countertop. There was a little note next to it with a smiley face and a “ _welcome back!_ ” scribbled on it. Once again, she felt a strange mix of appreciation and annoyance. She had never lived with someone so...aggressively _nice_ before. It was unnerving. Linda always had a snack waiting for them when they came back from school. She always smiled and asked how their day was at dinner. She had the patience of a saint with Michael and dropped everything to help him when he got upset.

That was fine, and Sam was glad to have foster parents who cared about him for once; but when they turned that fussy attention on her, or when Linda got into one of her I-know-you're-better-than-that lectures...

A yell and a muffled crash from Michael’s room startled her.

“Sam!” His voice was shrill with excitement. “Quick, quick, come quick! There’s _another one!_ ”

She shoved the water pitcher back on the counter and rushed to the hallway. Linda leaned around the corner with concerned eyes, violin tucked under her arm. “Everything alright?”

“I got this,” Sam reassured her, waving her back. “You just worry about your lesson.”

Linda glanced in the direction of his room, unconvinced, but she nodded. “If you need me to get anything for him, let me know.”

Another crash. The floor thumped. “ _Sam!_ ”

By the time Sam got to him, it looked like a tornado had whipped through his room. Several toys had been knocked from the shelves. His bed was chaotic. His K’nex arrangement lay in pieces on the carpet. And in the middle of the mess, he paced back and forth in wandering circles, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes were almost as wild as his hair.

“Where is it, where is it, I _saw_ it,” he chanted under his breath.

Sam crossed her arms. “Is it a bee? Do you need me to squish it?”

“No, NO! Don’t squish it!”

“Okay, okay, jeez. Calm down. What did you see?”

“Shh,” said Michael, closing his eyes and putting his fingers behind his ears. “I still hear it somewhere.”

They both held their breath, listening. At first, all Sam could hear were the “Twinkle” exercises Linda and her student were playing together. She closed the bedroom door behind her to shut out the noise, and listened again.

Yes, there it was – a faint hum, resonant and steady. It didn’t sound like a bee; it was higher in tone, and there was no rasp to it. No buzzing. It was smooth, musical. Almost like a choir boy humming in a cathedral.

The sound fluctuated in volume, moving over them. Michael opened his eyes, looking left and right, trying to follow it…and his face lit up. He pointed to her left and whispered, “Look.”

Sam turned and saw a blinking, golden light hovering next to her. It bobbed up and down, looped in the air, darted right up to her nose and back again. Then it began to fly in circles around her head.

“I think it likes you,” said Michael.

Sam was incredulous. “What the hell…?”

“I told you. Fireflies.”

“That’s impossible. It’s the middle of autumn and fireflies don’t…sound like…that.” She trailed off and fell silent. It was muted, but unmistakably, a second hum had joined the first. It was exactly a third higher. The harmony was beautiful, but the strangeness of it sent prickles up her neck.

Michael’s brown eyes widened. “Oh cool! It’s like a match!” He dropped to his stomach and dove under the bed, shoving old candy wrappers and dusty books out of his path.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Two of them for two of us. Like they’re matching us, see?” He reemerged, disheveled and triumphant, clutching a glass mason jar in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other. Scrambling to his feet, he held up the jar for her to see. “This is the one I caught.”

Eyebrows furrowed, she took it by the rim of the lid and leaned in to get a better look. The second hum had stopped, and she didn’t see anything inside…wait. There. A flicker of movement. The captured firefly blinked at her within the glass and resumed its harmony, moving like a spark blown on the wind.

“Wow,” murmured Sam. “Guess you weren’t completely kidding.”

Michael traded her the magnifying glass for the jar, unscrewed the punctured lid and covered the opening with his hand. “Don’t move,” he ordered. “I’m going to try and catch the other one.”

“Good luck with that.”

The other one was currently whizzing in frenetic laps around the room, pausing now and then to crawl along the ceiling. It wasn’t hard to deduce that chasing after it was how her brother had turned everything into a disaster area. This time, however, instead of chasing it, he sat on the bed and watched. Not moving a muscle. Just waiting.

A minute passed. Sam shifted her weight from foot to foot. _How long am I supposed to stand here_?

To her surprise, the firefly left its perch on the ceiling and hummed towards them again. It bumped against her nose. She blinked, but didn’t budge. It made one last loop around her, then flew up to Michael and hovered near his chin. Carefully – _carefully_ – he lifted the jar and moved his hand.

He didn’t even need to grab the firefly. All on its own, it slipped inside to join its companion.

“ _Got_ it!” he cried, covering the opening again. “Quick, I need the lid!”

After fumbling to close the jar and letting out a long breath, they sat together and examined their catch.

“Maybe it’s a new species,” said Sam, mostly to herself. Looking through the magnifying glass, it was easy to see that the humming noise wasn’t the only odd thing about Michael’s “magic fireflies”. The anatomy was normal, as far as she could tell (though her biology grades weren’t anything to be proud of. Well, _none_ of her grades were, at this point). But the coloring wasn’t the usual black-brown of the common lightning bug. The shells covering the wings were white, like mother-of-pearl, with a lovely iridescent sheen that made ripples of color when it caught the light. Similarly, their delicate limbs and bodies were very pale – almost see-through, like living blown glass.

It was their eyes that entranced her the most. They were a deep, dark, sapphire blue; and if she squinted and looked close, she could see flecks of rainbows in them.

These creatures belonged on a brooch, or inside a fairytale book. Not in a kid’s bedroom. No wonder Michael thought they were magic.

She passed the magnifying glass to him. He stared through it, spellbound, and sang, “You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies…”

“…lit up the world as I fell asleep,” finished Sam, the corner of her mouth quirking. She hadn’t sung that song since middle school, but the words of the first verse were still branded in her memory. Nobody had escaped that infectious tune.

“They’re so pretty, aren’t they?”

She nodded wordlessly, watching them crawl up the glass. In the back of her mind, she wondered if any scientists had discovered them yet – and if not, how much they might pay someone to hand them over for research. _Maybe we can use this. Maybe it’ll help Dad shake off the debt. Maybe we’ll be famous, and someone will give him a job, and he’ll be so happy and proud of us that he’ll forget about Mom and stop drinking and we can **go home** …_

“Where did you say you found them?” she asked.

“I didn’t find them. They just came here through the window.”

“Have you seen any others?”

“No, only these two.” He smiled. “It’s perfect this way now. ‘Cos there’s one for me and one for you.”

“Yep. Have you shown them to Mr. and Mrs. Silvers yet?”

Michael stiffened. “I don’t want to tell them. Not anyone.”

Sam looked at him, puzzled. “Why not?”

“I just have a strong feeling that they have to be a secret. Like, it’ll mess up my head if we tell people, because they’re special and pretty and they should be secret, okay?” He pulled at the loose fabric of his shirt, twisted it in his fingers. “Please don’t tell anybody.”

“But—”

“I said ‘please’.”

She sighed. It was a stupid dream. There wouldn’t be time to show this mystery species to anyone important, anyway. The fireflies would die if they stayed cooped up here much longer. Even if someone _did_ pay to have them, she knew it wouldn’t fix anything. Only sobriety and a steady job on Dad’s end could do that; and by now, she was all too familiar with his pattern.

_We’re stranded. We’ll always be stranded. There’s nothing we can do._

“Please, Sam?” Michael cradled the jar against his chest.

“Okay,” she said, swallowing back the dull ache in her throat. “I won’t tell anyone. It’ll be our secret.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Besides, grownups would ruin it.” She thought of hands in sterile gloves, picking them up by their shimmering wings, snuffing the life out of them and pinning them to a card, or cutting them apart under a microscope; and she shivered a little. Looking at them now, safe between Michael’s hands – humming, moving, shining, _alive_ – she felt ashamed for considering any other option. Some things didn’t belong in a display case.

Sam reached out and traced the glass with one finger. One of the fireflies followed it and stopped at her fingertip, waving its antennae at her.

“Aww, look,” said Michael. “It’s saying ‘hi’ to you.”

“Have you named them yet?”

“I named the first one Gabe.”

“ _Gabe?_ ” She suppressed a laugh. “Why’d you name it that?”

He tilted his head, shrugged. “When I looked at it, it felt like a ‘Gabe’. I think you should name yours, too.”

“Hmm…” She pursed her lips, making an exaggerated show of concentration, and lightly tapped her finger at the insect. “I dub thee…Fred. Fred the Firefly.”

Now it was Michael’s turn to snicker. “That’s a silly name!”

She stuck out her tongue at him. “It’s no sillier than ‘Gabe’, you dork.”

-:-


End file.
